Sen. Lindsey Graham’s Head Explodes Over ISIS: Obama May Get Us ‘All…Killed Back Here’

Senator Lindsey Graham (R-SC) sounded nearly hysterical on Fox News Sunday today as he didn’t just blast President Obama’s strategy to combat ISIS but suggested we’re all about to die because of it.

Calling the Obama plan “delusional,” Graham went on to say:

This is not about bringing a few people to justice who behead the innocent in a brutal fashion. It’s about protecting millions of people throughout the world from a radical Islamic army that are intending to come here.

So, I will not let this president suggest to the American people we can outsource our security and this is not about our safety. There is no way in hell you can form an army on the ground to go into Syria, to destroy ISIL without a substantial American component. And to destroy ISIL, you have to kill or capture their leaders, take the territory they hold back, cut off their financing and destroy their capability to regenerate. This is a war we’re fighting, it is not a counterterrorism operation. This is not Somalia. This is not Yemen. This is a turning point in the war on terror. Our strategy will fail yet again. This president needs to rise to the occasion before we all get killed back here at home.

… I am tired of hearing from this administration how easy this is going to be, when it’s going to be hard and the consequences of losing my friend, is if they survive our best shot, this is the last best chance, to knock 'em out, then they will open the gates of hell to spill out on the world. This is not a Sunni versus Sunni problem, this is ISIL versus mankind.

Appearing with Graham was Democratic Senator Jack Reed. But Reed made no effort to challenge or smack down Graham’s unhinged – and politically expedient – fear mongering. Reed could have demanded that Graham offer his disagreements like a grownup instead of deliberately suggesting our president is about to cause our collective death. Or Reed could have demanded to know whether Graham seriously thinks the American public wants to go invading the area – again.

Instead, Reed made completely reasonable arguments while ignoring the elephant in the room: Graham’s pernicious tactics – which host John Roberts tacitly went along with. As a result, Reed looked namby-pamby and weak with such comments as:

I think the plan has great potential to work. First of all, there is the U.S. forces, airpower. Second with the cooperation of the Saudis, we’re going to be training, and it’s going to be done by the Department of Defense, military personnel, Syrians, to go back into Syria. Lindsey and I both support that effort. Then we’re going to be hopefully backing up the Iraqis as they start re-claiming their territory, putting pressure on ISIL to either move forces back to Iraq to defend the territory that they have captured, or to pull back and let us take more Iraqi territory back.

So I think the plan is the best possible one, because it recognizes it’s not just a full military struggle, it’s also a political struggle.

In case you don’t think this kind of fear mongering works, remember how we had to invade Iraq or else? I fully expect to hear lots more like this in a steady drumroll on Fox in the days to come.

Let's hope President Obama and the left have a strategy to deal with that, too.

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Graham: “It’s about protecting millions of people throughout the world from a radical Islamic army that are intending to come here.” How does he know that? As far as I know, ISIS hasn’t stated that as one of their objectives.

“This president needs to rise to the occasion before we all get killed back here at home.” Really? Those 200,000 or so ISIS fighters are going to kill everyone in the United States?

“they will open the gates of hell to spill out on the world” So how exactly do you think they’re going to do that, Lindsey?

This not rational discourse, which is what is needed to address this problem. This is abject fear mongering.

Remember when Republicans tried to convince us they were the “adults” in the room? I haven’t heard them attempt that one in a while.